What I'm hoping to find out is if there is a way to do it without downloading the picture and then uploading a picture that already exists somewhere on this web site. With HTML, it's very easy to do that because you just enter code that basically says "show this picture, which already exists in this specific place." I assume you can do that on these boards, too. But since the boards don't use HTML, I have no idea how to do it.

I already know where the picture files exist on this web site, which is why you can see the pictures when you follow my links a few posts back. I just don't know how to tell the reply form to show the particular picture files in my reply. There's gotta be an easy way to do that.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

What I'm hoping to find out is if there is a way to do it without downloading the picture and then uploading a picture that already exists somewhere on this web site. With HTML, it's very easy to do that because you just enter code that basically says "show this picture, which already exists in this specific place." I assume you can do that on these boards, too. But since the boards don't use HTML, I have no idea how to do it.

I already know where the picture files exist on this web site, which is why you can see the pictures when you follow my links a few posts back. I just don't know how to tell the reply form to show the particular picture files in my reply. There's gotta be an easy way to do that.

pythonic you Gotta try his recipe and tell us/him Where he needs to go!

Totally. As I've learned from my Tommy's (cracker) experiment, it gets lonely when you try to clone a specific pizzeria's pizza and no one else is trying it with you. In the case of Tommy's, it's mostly because very few members have had Tommy's, but it's surely also because it takes a ton of really hard work to roll the stiff dough into 8 laminates. It takes half an hour for me to roll each Tommy's skin (which I'm about to do twice).

Of the four stuffed pizzas I've made so far, the second one was by far the best. (That's the one that's pictured near the bottom of page 1 of this thread, in Reply #18.) The formula for that dough was:

I believe that was a 2-1/2 day dough. After that batch, I decreased the fat by 2% but increased the hydration by 3%, then another 1% with the next batch, which means functionally I ended up increasing the hydration by 1%, then another 1%, which I now know was not the right thing to do. I'm not sure if I already listed the formula for my most recent dough, which I made Thursday night for later today (Saturday), but here it is:

100% Pillsbury bleached AP47% Water0.6% IDY0.9% Salt6% Shortening

Note that the sum of the hydration and fat for this formula is 53% (47% water + 6% shortening), rather than 54% (46% water + 8% oil), as in the top formula. As soon as I went above 54%, I ended up with dough that I thought was too soft. Also, in my experience, Pillsbury AP requires a higher hydration figure than other AP flours (particularly KAAP and Meijer brand); possibly as much as 4% or 5% higher. Gold Medal seems about the same as Pillsbury. So if you try this with some other AP flour, you might consider dropping the hydration by a few percent.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

I'm getting ready to roll the "emergency" stuffed dough I made Thursday night. No guests have shown up yet for my party, and I'm only expecting one person from my entire Facebook friends list (172 "friends"), plus her two guests. (My mom said some of her people are coming, too.) I've done a lot of work the last two days to make four different kinds of dough (and other stuff), so I hope some people show up eventually; neighbors and stuff. But since I live in a rural area, "neighbors" is a very small quantity of people.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

I don't know if the Giordano's style pizzas I've made taste anything like Giordano's, but one thing I do know is that I've received an overwhelmingly positive response from the people who have eaten these pizzas. I made a couple really good NY style pizzas today, in addition to a Tommy's style pizza (laminated cracker) that may have had the best crust I've ever made for that style, but there seemed to be a buzz about the stuffed pizza. A guest I'd never met before today said it was the best pizza he's ever had. I'm sure we've all heard that more than a few times, but sometimes it seems more genuine than other times. I'm not sure how genuine it was this time, but it's always nice to hear.

In my opinion, today's stuffed pizza was nothing special; probably even overfermented, judging by the texture of the outer crust as I look at a picture. So to get that kind of response is a pretty cool feeling.

I'll try to get some more pics up here soon, of all the stuffed pizzas I've photographed.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

I'm using a 10" x 2" seasoned aluminum pan. Even though it's not a true deep dish pan, it's not a bad pan. I have four tin-plated steel deep dish pans, but the three smallest ones (6", 9", and 12") don't really work for stuffed pizza because they're only 1.5" deep. The 14" deep dish pan is 2" deep, but I haven't used it yet because I've had no need to make a 14" stuffed pizza so far. That would make almost a 6 lb pizza!

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

I'm using a 10" x 2" seasoned aluminum pan. Even though it's not a true deep dish pan, it's not a bad pan. I have four tin-plated steel deep dish pans, but the three smallest ones (6", 9", and 12") don't really work for stuffed pizza because they're only 1.5" deep. The 14" deep dish pan is 2" deep, but I haven't used it yet because I've had no need to make a 14" stuffed pizza so far. That would make almost a 6 lb pizza!

I didn't really plan to make this pizza. Sometime that morning, I decided I wanted to make a pizza that evening; a style of pizza I'd never had before that day. I gave the dough a 6-hour bulk ferment, then made the pizza. Baked at 450 for 35 minutes. Aside from the excess browning, this pizza turned out very nice.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Here are some pics of my second stuffed pizza ever, from 8/17/13. The formula for this dough was:

100% Pillsbury AP flour46% Water0.6% ADY1.5% Salt8% Oil

I believe I made this dough on a Thursday Wednesday night, for Saturday. This pizza is by far the best stuffed pizza I've made so far. Note that I 86ed sugar for this batch, after using 2% sugar for the first batch.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

This one is also from 8/17/13. It was made from the same dough that I used for the other pizza on 8/17/13. I kinda screwed up with this one, though. 13 minutes into baking this pizza, I realized the oven was set to 500 (because I had previously made a Tommy's style pizza, which I bake at 500). I immediately turned the oven down to 450 and hoped my mistake wouldn't screw the pizza up too bad. However, the pizza didn't turn out right.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

This is my fourth stuffed pizza, from 8/22/13. The formula for the dough was:

100% Pillsbury bleached AP flour49% Water0.4% IDY1.5% Salt6% Corn oil

I think I made the dough three days before I made this pizza. This one was for my friend Lisa, whose birthday was a couple days ago. She ate two slices of the pizza, which were half a pound each. (I ate three.) I was a little disappointed with this one, first of all because this is the pizza that made me realize I was doing the wrong thing by increasing the hydration, but also because the cheese wasn't as gooey as the other stuffed pizzas I'd made. I think I used 14 oz of cheese in this one, instead of 13 oz, as I had done with the previous pizzas, which is why I suspect the cheese wasn't as gooey as usual.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Even though I already had two batches of dough in the fridge Thursday night, I made this dough for today (Saturday) because Thursday's pizza made me realize the hydration figures of the other two batches were too high. Even with the drop in hydration, this dough ended up feeling too soft. But the softness of this dough may have been a result of overfermentation, which I think is evident in the visible texture of the crust. The pizza was still very good, though, and my guests seemed to love it.

I had never used IDY until the last few days, and it's giving me a little trouble. Even though the yeast is working, it's not working as fast as I expected. In fact, it doesn't seem to be working any faster than ADY. Consequently, I've had to mess with my dough management procedures because I've been worried about ending up with underfermented dough. Then I end up with overfermented dough. Not a huge problem, but it's kinda frustrating. I'm not sure if it's bad yeast or if it's just me having trouble figuring out the conversion from ADY to IDY.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

I made another one of these today, using one of the two batches of dough I thought I might end up throwing out after I realized I was starting to go too high with the hydration percentage. The dough I used for this pizza was the dough I made 5 days ago, using this formula:

100% Pillsbury unbleached AP flour50% Water1% ADY0.9% Salt6% Corn oil

This dough had been bulk fermenting in a covered bowl in the fridge ever since I mixed it five days ago. I hadn't punched it down or anything, and I was worried that it would be overfermented and end up making a less-than-desirable pizza.

The pizza turned out very good.

I divided and rolled the dough (using as little bench flour as possible) almost immediately after pulling it from the fridge, then I assembled the pizza and baked at 450 for 40 minutes. All my other stuffed pizzas have baked for 35 minutes (excluding the pizza that baked at 500 for the first 13 minutes). I hoped the extra five minutes of bake-time would make the cheese a little gooier than the cheese has been with my previous couple pizzas, but I don't think I achieved the result I was hoping for.

I invited a neighbor and his son over to munch on this pizza (in addition to a Tommy's style pizza), along with myself and my parents. The neighbors really liked this pizza, and I'm pretty sure my mom said this was my best stuffed pizza yet. (I'm more inclined to say it was a close second best.)

I’m noticing some trends with my stuffed pizzas:

The best pizzas so far (which were also the best-looking pizzas) contained both ADY and corn oil in the dough, rather than IDY and shortening. I can't say for sure, though, that either of these things is what caused the pizzas to be either good or not so good. I think the main reason why the IDY pizzas have not turned out as good is because the dough for these pizzas has been overfermented. Not because I used IDY, but because I had to alter my dough management with the IDY dough. I had never used IDY before the last week or so, and I've made some mistakes because of it.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Nate, I've been rolling the top layer much thinner than the bottom layer. Since I divide the dough into a 20 oz piece and a 10 oz piece, I don't have much choice but to end up with a considerably thinner top skin unless I roll the bottom skin way too thin (like I did with the most recent pizza). I end up trimming approximately half of the dough from the top skin, which means the top skin ends up using maybe 5 oz of dough (which is very thin). The top layer may look kinda thick in some of these pics, but it's actually very thin.

Having said that, I must admit that videos make it appear as if Giordano's sheets both skins to the same thickness.

Even though the video evidence suggests that the bottom and top skins are sheeted to the same thickness, I agree with you that it seems like the top skin should be much thinner than the bottom skin. If they do sheet each dough layer to the same thickness, one way I think they may end up with a thinner top layer is by placing the top layer flat on top of the pan, with a lot of air under it, rather than by making any effort to remove the air beneath the dough and shape the skin to the surface area inside the pan (as they do with the bottom skin). This way, when they crimp the two skins together around the outside, then add the sauce, the weight of the sauce ends up stretching the top skin, making the top layer thinner.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Here are a couple pizzas I've made out of scrap dough left over from pizzas pictured above. The first two pics are of a pizza I baked on 8/21/13, using scraps from the stuffed pizzas I baked on 8/17/13. The last two pics are of a pizza I baked earlier tonight using dough I think was scraps from yesterday's stuffed pizza. (There are so many scraps in the fridge right now, it's hard to say which scraps are which.)

As you can probably tell, these pizzas were constructed similar to how deep dish pizza are built, excluding the rolled skins. I rolled the dough and draped it over a deep dish pan, then formed it to fit snugly in the pan and trimmed the excess dough. I added cheese first, then sausage (on tonight's), then sauce.

The first pizza is the one I mentioned and described earlier in this thread, which was made by rolling two pieces of scrap dough separately, then rolling them together before shaping, trimming, and topping.

These were very good pizzas; some of my favorite ever. Take note of the outside of the crust. To me the crust looks a lot more like Giordano's crust than the original pizzas did. I feel like maybe there's a lesson hidden in these crusts.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Here are some pictures I picked out of the Google image search results for Giordano's. I can't say for sure that all the pics are from Giordano's, but I feel pretty confident that they are all from Giordano's. I'm attempting to show that there's one obvious common characteristic with each of these pizzas; a characteristic that has been said many times in Giordano's threads not to be a characteristic of Giordano's pizza, including earlier on this page. Anyone care to guess what characteristic I'm attempting to highlight here?

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

This picture is interesting because it lends support to what Nate has been saying about lamination, but it also suggests some other things, which I won't discuss until after I've given everyone some time to think about what I was trying to show in the previous two posts.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.